HCF picks out problems from customer calls

Health fund HCF is pioneering speech analytics in its call centre that listens to calls and can pinpoint customer problems before they escalate.

The provider is said to be the first company in Australia to buy a Verint analytics system.

It purchased the system from integrator NSC Group.

The Verint system is designed to provide "crucial" business intelligence from the recorded voices of customers and call centre agents, according to Belinda Sproule, call centre manager for HCF Direct.

"Speech analytics wasn't something we necessarily had on our radar, but once we were shown what it could do, we immediately recognised its potential for our business," Sproule said.

Working from "a huge dictionary", the analytics software listens and records every call that comes into the HCF call centre.

Audio indexing and emotion detection then categorises audio interactions and identifies the top reasons for calls within each category.

"The ability of speech analytics to pinpoint problems before they escalate or track campaigns in real-time so we can provide immediate feedback to our marketing team provides us with a powerful business tool," Sproule said.

The HCF call centre handles more than 660,000 calls a year and generates more than one fifth of all new business, she said.